McHenry Journal.

Mayor Puts His City In Focus With Tv Show

It's not like Robert Wagner, attorney and mayor of Crystal Lake, needs another occupation. He manages to keep busy enough as it is.

Nonetheless, he has decided to give a career in television a whirl, with a dream of becoming the Charles Kuralt of municipal government--at least, the McHenry County local access cable version.

"I want to go on the road, take the camera to people and focus on the community, so residents here can feel good about their city and their neighborhoods," Wagner said.

He began reeling off a list of interesting Crystal Lake residents he would like to interview: The 71-year-old Chamber of Commerce official who jogs 6 miles daily; the Pontiac dealership owner who came to America from Nigeria with $17 in his pocket; the handler of the police dog trained to sniff narcotics in the parks, and the new, 79-year-old, first-time park district trustee.

However, one thing he probably won't try his hand at is weather forecasting. His first show, which hasn't yet aired, was cut short when "it began to rain buckets, along with thunder and lightning," just as he and the camera were ready to take a walk down Williams Street for a brief tour of new downtown businesses.

The show began with conversations in the Buzz Cup, a new coffee shop in Crystal Lake, and so continued in that vein. Wagner has no problem keeping a conversation going off the top of his head.

"As an attorney, asking questions is no problem at all. I just have to be careful I don't start cross-examining everybody," he observed.

He has plans floating around in his head for future shows, but said first he wants to finish the idea he had for the first one.

"We'll have to get back out on Williams Street to talk to the shopkeepers, since that first episode is not really the show we wanted," he said.

Nonetheless, Wagner is happy with the response that the show is getting, even before it airs.

"Lots of people are calling with ideas, topics, people to be interviewed, or offers to be interviewed themselves," he said. "The idea has gotten a very positive response."

Wagner promised the show will be absolutely apolitical.

"Local politics here is something of a cesspool," he said. "I want to stay above the fray with this, focus on the fun stuff and maybe keep my own sanity in the process."

He also doesn't want it to be the type of production that you usually see on local access television.

"Those televised city council meetings are like Chinese water torture," he said, groaning. "I want my shows to be much more concentrated and have a whole lot more content than those deadly things."

Peter Lilly, video production manager at TCI, which provides Crystal Lake cable coverage, said he thinks the Wagner show is definitely shaping up differently from the usual local access show by a suburban mayor.

"It is definitely different, much less formal," Lilly said. "Ordinarily, we don't do the camera and production work for local access shows, but this seemed to be more about the community, without any politics involved, so we became interested in it."

Lilly said the show will be shot "as if it were live on tape. We just have to add a beginning and an end, and edit for length."

He feels that a half-hour is the best time-frame, and he and Wagner are going to have to develop some time cues to keep him within those constraints.

Wagner said he has "lots of creative things I want to do," but admits he doesn't have the time for a professional commitment.

"I just hope to center mostly around my guests, asking them questions," he said.

He also wants to take advantage of the format to get news about the city out, since he believes not enough people pay attention to other sources of dissemination, such as the city newsletter.

"If this show makes it easier for people to understand what is going on, then it will really help them--and me," he said.

The show, titled "On the Bright Side," is scheduled to air at 9 p.m. Tuesdays and possibly repeat a couple times during the month. There is no official starting date yet.

Wagner said he would like to do a new show every other week, rather than monthly, if that works out.

His favorite idea so far: To take a camera out in a fishing boat on Crystal Lake.